Israel accused of killing Syrian intel official on Golan
Madhat al-Salah had served prison time for trying to kidnap IDF soldier in 1980s
a syrian man who spent time in an israeli prison for terrorist activities was killed in syria at the end of last week, according to syrian reports on saturday evening.
the man, identified as madhat al-salah, was killed in the town of ain el-tineh near the village of hadar on the Golan heights along the border with israel.
while initially his death was thought to have been the result of an israeli airstrike in syria over the weekend, a syrian news agency reported that he was shot and killed by an israeli sniper. ain el-tineh is a few hundred meters from the border.
according to maj. (res.) tal beeri, head of the research department at the alma center, salah, who lived in jaramana near the capital of damascus, might have been working for the group and was in the area in order to carry out an order.
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“if it’s not an internal event, and he was indeed killed by israel, then it’s likely that he was involved in an attack against israel that was at an advanced stage,” beeri told The Jerusalem Post.
salah lived in the mas’ada village in the Golan before he was arrested for trying to kidnap an idF soldier in 1985 and sentenced to 12 years in prison. he was released in 1998, crossed the border to syria and was voted into the syrian parliament a few years later, where he dealt with Golan affairs and syrian citizens living in the Golan, according to a report from walla.
according to n12, salah spent four years as the representative of the Golan in the syrian parliament and then became head of the office that keeps track of syrian citizens who still live in the Golan.
beeri told the Post that salah was considered a syrian intelligence activist who was involved in recruiting sources in israel.
the alleged assassination comes several days after israel was accused of carrying out airstrikes in syria as part of the idF’s war-between-wars campaign to prevent iran and hezbollah from entrenching themselves on the Golan heights in order to open an additional front against the jewish state.
israel has in the past been
accused of carrying out attacks against individuals who were involved in terrorist activity on the Golan Heights.
Last week, Israel was accused of hitting several Iranian positions near the T-4 airbase in Tadmor, Syria. There was another strike on the same airbase several days earlier. Several pro-Iranian fighters were killed and at least six were wounded.
The IDF doesn’t comment on foreign reports, but the Israeli military has accused the Syrian Arab Army of cooperating with Hezbollah. In May, it dropped leaflets in southern Syria that warned them to “stop cooperating with the Syrian and Lebanese personnel of Hezbollah. Otherwise, you will
poll showed many Palestinians continue to regard Barghouti as their preferred candidate for PA president.
According to the poll, Barghouti is more popular than Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and other potential candidates, including PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, ousted Fatah official Mohammed Dahlan, and former PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.
Earlier this year, Barghouti openly challenged the 85-year-old Abbas by joining forces with Nasser al-Qidwah, a veteran Fatah official and critic of the president, ahead of the parliamentary elections, which were supposed to take place on May 22.
Qidwah, the nephew of former PLO leader Yasser Arafat, was expelled from Fatah earlier this year because he decided to run on a separate list in the parliamentary election.
Abbas called off the election on the pretext that Israel had refused to allow the PA to hold the vote in Jerusalem.
The Egyptian sources claimed that Abbas “pressured more than one party, including Egypt, to reach agreement on some internal arrangements and matters related to him remaining in his position at the head of the Palestinian Authority for an indefinite period” before launching negotiations to reach a prisoner exchange deal between Hamas and Israel.
Recently, Barghouti’s wife, Fadwa, met Haniyeh in Cairo – a move seen by some Palestinian political activists as a sign of an impending prisoner swap deal.
The Hamas leader reportedly assured her that her husband would be at the top of the list of prisoners Hamas wants released from Israeli prison. “The issue of the prisoners is not partisan,” Haniyeh was quoted as saying.
In the past, Fadwa Barghouti had accused the PA leadership of failing to make an effort to secure the release of her husband.
Hamas officials have stated that in addition to Barghouti, they are also demanding the release of Ahmad Sa’dat, secretary-general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), who is serving a 30-year prison sentence for his role in the assassination of former Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze’evi in 2001.
In a related development, senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya said on Friday that his group was determined to achieve a new prisoner exchange deal with Israel.
“Hamas is ready for a deal if the occupation meets its demands,” Hayya told the Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV station. “The prisoners of the occupation will not see the light until our prisoners see freedom.”
Hamas is holding the bodies of IDF soldiers Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, who were killed during the 2014 Israel-Hamas war, as well as Israeli civilians Avera Mangistu and Hisham al-Sayyed, who crossed into the Gaza Strip on their own in 2014 and 2015 respective